Chapter 23: Gander doesn’t eat the soldiers

Soldiers of fortune! Lower order fortune spirits.

Spirits that are primarily centred on fortune, as in events and randomness being the decider of those events, are a large family of spirits. Not of course as large as shadow, water, earth, death or life and others of the Common Elements. Fortune falls under the domain of the Prime Element of Chaos.

Many fortune spirits are extremely powerful… however… among all the spirits that exist, fortune spirits are notoriously unreliable. Powerful one moment, weak the next. Most are incapable of making a single choice instead randomly choosing from a selection of options.

Then there is the forms they come in! While there is a number of particular kinds of fortune spirits, it isn’t unusual for them to have random bits and pieces. Also while there is many tales of spirits trapping people in games that sometimes are grim in nature, fortune spirits love games, particularly high stakes games.

soldiers of fortune are a little bit different, being a magifactured spirit. In the first place they are made by making a body from coins that have passed many gambling hands for best results the hands of gambling soldiers. The body consists of a large ring, attached to this ring is a variable number of limbs, though an arrangement that allows the soldier of fortune to move and pick things up is generally favoured. Finally on the top of the ring attach a small symbolic helmet.

There is a number of other steps, but that one is the important one.

It should be noted that the type of hands that the gambled coins passed through and the headwear piece determine what manner of Fortune spirit is created. For example, if one used money that had been gambled by many bards and put a suitably bardic hat on the body, you would have a bard of fortune prepared.

As to why anyone would ever want a bard of fortune, well some things are beyond the ken of lesser mortals, or sane people.

Now, having made this body, with the right cultivation or spirit cuttings, one forms the core of the fortune spirit.

In the case of the soldiers guarding the entrance to the blue curtain, their core was a lily white cube, with each face of the cube having eyes on it, apart from one that had only a single eye. These eyes had blue irises. The cube floated inside the ring. It is said that the more faces a spirit of fortune of these kinds have, the more powerful they are.

These soldiers of fortune carried crystal spears, or at least they would have been carrying them if they had not laid them up against the outside of the curtain. The soldiers were playing some kind of game with cards carved, yes, from crystal.

“They are very weak, can I eat them?” Gander asked.

-You can’t just eat people, look they are playing a game- Susasov objected.

“Evil people play gamesssss too” Gander countered.

“Eating evil people is ok?” Ka wondered.

“No, yes? I’m not sure” Olice began “Wouldn’t they give indigestion?”

“Not too bad asss long assss they haven’t gone chlanic” Gander countered.

Eating chlanic things was usually a bad idea, in a similar but larger sense that generally eating rotten food is not a good idea.

“Gander, you can’t eat these spirits, they might know something about this curtain, and eating people is mean!” Olice decided.

“Sssso, are you going to jusssst go up and ask them?” Gander asked.

“Yes, you did say they are weak, so if they try anything you can eat them” Olice said.

With that Olice cautiously trotted over to the two soldiers.

“Er, hello?”

The heads of the soldiers began spinning. One got two eyes as its face, the other got five eyes. The one that got two eyes sighed heavily putting its cards down.

“Welcome to the Chancy Kingdom, what can I do for you, beastling?” It said.

“What is the Chancy Kingdom?” Olice asked.

The soldier’s head rolled a single eye.

“Ugh, I don’t want to explain, actually what are you even?”

Olice was about to say something when Gander rose up and gave a withering stare to the soldier.

The head rolled again, a four.

“Ok, I was only joking, the Chancy Kingdom is this place’s best hope for being made stable and safe! We’ll stain the place blue and everything will be great!”

“Why?” Ka asked.

The head rolled again, a five.

“Because the Grand Eye willed it!”

The other soldier’s head rolled a two.

“Hail the Eye!” It mumbled unenthusiastically.

Olice was deciding that she really didn’t want anything to do with these silly spirits.

“You don’t mind if I enter the kingdom do you”

The heads of the soldiers rolled a four and six.

“Of course you can, go right ahead!” Six gushed.

“Don’t cause any trouble” Four grumbled.

“Thank you, I’ll be good” Olice promised.

She as hastily as she could manage without looking like she was rushing, rushed past the soldiers.

Within the blue curtain was hilly fields of crystal glass, and thin waterfalls of crystal from above. In particular and quite out of place was a fortress nestled in amid the hills. A blue metal fortress, this fortress was like a collection of bubbles. It was more like a mound than a tower, some of it looked the worse for wear, in particular there was a dark scorched scar cutting through a number of the bubbles.

Olice heard the heads of the soldiers roll behind her.

“Hey I only noticed now but isn’t that her?”

“Yes, it is”

More rolling happened.

“Oi! Stop right there! Thought you could fool us did you? You’ve broken the laws of the Chancy Kingdom too many times. We’re arresting you!”

“What? But I’ve never been here before!” Olice objected.

The soldier’s heads rolled, a five and a four.

“Oh yeah, then what about this wanted poster?”

Five unfurled a poster that had the spitting image of Olice on it, except that the face was far too cruel and unpleasant for a child like her.